Soccer fans seek their fix of blistering goals and near misses not just on TV, but on social media services and their favorite sports sites, too. Now, World Cup rights-holders are trying to stop digital competitors who are helping themselves to highlights from this summer’s tournament without permission.

Viewers have a range of ways to view officially-licensed ESPN and Univision coverage of the World Cup, from watching it on cable to streaming it on their mobile devices. But fans also track the games elsewhere, like on Twitter and fast-acting sites that quickly create animated GIFs and videos on Vine — a Twitter-owned app that makes six-second looping videos.

In recent years media companies and publishers have sparred over whether these clips fall under editorial “fair use.” This World Cup the message from ESPN and Univision is clear: It doesn’t.

Since the start of the tournament Vox Media-owned sports site SB Nation, one of the chief purveyors of quick World Cup content, has had two accounts suspended on Vine, according to its managing editor Brian Floyd.

SB Nation received suspension notices from Twitter, Mr. Floyd said, after a complaint from media-protection company Irdeto, which works on behalf of Univision.

“They don’t seem to mind people Vine-ing funny stuff like fans,” explained Clay Wendler, who quickly crafts Vines for SB Nation. But when it comes to goals — breathtaking moments of glory seemingly tailor-made for the six-second looping video format — rights-holders are more stringent, Mr. Wendler said. Twitter did not respond to requests for comment on its policies regarding World Cup content.

SB Nation and Twitter aren’t the only sites to feel the pressure. On Friday Slate.com published a hugely entertaining video rounding up all 136 goals scored during the group stages of the World Cup tournament.

The 8-minute video was the type of content rabid soccer fans devour and share, which is presumably why Slate decided to cut it together in the first place. The video, which also carried pre-roll advertising for a range of major brands, generated nearly 2,000 shares across Facebook and Twitter in a few hours, and likely thousands of video ad views in the process.

Following inquiries from CMO Today, however, the video was promptly removed from the Slate site Friday. A person familiar with the matter said the publisher removed the video after being contacted by ESPN.

A Slate spokesperson declined to comment, but an update to the post read, “Because of copyright issues, the video in this post has been removed.”

According to ESPN and Univision, FIFA is handling the enforcement of the rights it sells to broadcasters, but the two companies still choose to help out where they can.

“We are assisting FIFA by notifying it and its takedown vendor, Net Results, of uses of World Cup content that we believe encroach on our licensed rights,” a statement from ESPN and Univision read.

In response to questions about the online publication of World Cup content, a FIFA spokesperson simply said highlights from the tournament are granted exclusively to its media rights licensees, save for “certain carve outs for bona fide news purposes subject to a separate news licence agreement.”

Comments (4 of 4)

ESPN/Univision should be producing those highlight clips and putting them out with advertising attached. Exploit your own assets so others don't have to.

5:56 pm July 1, 2014

Jamison Dance wrote:

This seems like it would fall under fair use, but the companies don't want to pay the legal fees to take it all the way to court.

5:39 pm July 1, 2014

Bob wrote:

"Whatever happened to the free press??
It’s my ball and you can’t use it…"

You can write about the game all you want, but why would someone have the right to re-broadcast something that someone else paid to film? It's not their ball, but it IS their camera and it IS their film (and their media license). Why should you be allowed to steal their footage without any compensation? It's theft.

12:22 pm July 1, 2014

Anonymous wrote:

Copyright?? WTF people??Whatever happened to the free press??
It's my ball and you can't use it...

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